scholarly journals An Image Segmentation Method Based on Improved Regularized Level Set Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 2393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Sun ◽  
Xinchao Meng ◽  
Jiucheng Xu ◽  
Shiguang Zhang

When the level set algorithm is used to segment an image, the level set function must be initialized periodically to ensure that it remains a signed distance function (SDF). To avoid this defect, an improved regularized level set method-based image segmentation approach is presented. First, a new potential function is defined and introduced to reconstruct a new distance regularization term to solve this issue of periodically initializing the level set function. Second, by combining the distance regularization term with the internal and external energy terms, a new energy functional is developed. Then, the process of the new energy functional evolution is derived by using the calculus of variations and the steepest descent approach, and a partial differential equation is designed. Finally, an improved regularized level set-based image segmentation (IRLS-IS) method is proposed. Numerical experimental results demonstrate that the IRLS-IS method is not only effective and robust to segment noise and intensity-inhomogeneous images but can also analyze complex medical images well.

2013 ◽  
Vol 09 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250004 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAIYING LIU ◽  
YU CHENG ◽  
MAX Q.-H. MENG

A novel variational multiphase level set mathematical model is derived for image segmentation with two contributions. By virtue of eliminating the time-consuming re-initialization procedure and neglecting the property of the level set function during the evolution process, we in this paper present two strategies that may be taken as our contributions to solving these problems. Two scenarios are considered, namely, first, the distance regularization term which is defined by double-well potential function with two minimum points is introduced to our mathematical model for avoiding the re-initialization process. Second, by combining a Tikhonov-like regularization term which can guarantee the smoothness for the evolution curve over the previous method. Numerical simulation studies are presented to verify our new model via evaluating and comparing with existing algorithms.


2012 ◽  
Vol 532-533 ◽  
pp. 892-896
Author(s):  
Hai Yong Xu ◽  
Ming Hua Liu

In this paper, we propose a novel edge and region-based active contour model. We consider geodesic curve and region-based model, and evolve a contour based on global information. Moreover, we add to the level set regularization term in the energy functional to ensure accurate computation and avoids expensive re-initialization of the level set function. Experiments on synthetic and real images show desirable performances of our method.


Author(s):  
Long Jiang ◽  
Shikui Chen ◽  
Xiangmin Jiao

The parametric level set method is an extension of the conventional level set methods for topology optimization. By parameterizing the level set function, conventional levels let methods can be easily coupled with mathematical programming to achieve better numerical robustness and computational efficiency. Furthermore, the parametric level set scheme not only can inherit the original advantages of the conventional level set methods, such as clear boundary representation and high topological changes handling flexibility but also can alleviate some un-preferred features from the conventional level set methods, such as needing re-initialization. However, in the RBF-based parametric level set method, it was difficult to determine the range of the design variables. Moreover, with the mathematically driven optimization process, the level set function often results in significant fluctuations during the optimization process. This brings difficulties in both numerical stability control and material property interpolation. In this paper, an RBF partition of unity collocation method is implemented to create a new type of kernel function termed as the Cardinal Basis Function (CBF), which employed as the kernel function to parameterize the level set function. The advantage of using the CBF is that the range of the design variable, which was the weight factor in conventional RBF, can be explicitly specified. Additionally, a distance regularization energy functional is introduced to maintain a desired distance regularized level set function evolution. With this desired distance regularization feature, the level set evolution is stabilized against significant fluctuations. Besides, the material property interpolation from the level set function to the finite element model can be more accurate.


Author(s):  
Zhongming Luo ◽  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Zixuan Zhou ◽  
Xuan Bi ◽  
Haibin Wu ◽  
...  

To address problems relating to microscopic micro-vessel images of living bodies, including poor vessel continuity, blurry boundaries between vessel edges and tissue and uneven field illuminance, and this paper put forward a fuzzy-clustering level-set segmentation algorithm. By this method, pre-treated micro-vessel images were segmented by the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm to obtain original contours of interesting areas in images. By the evolution equations of the improved level set function, accurate segmentation of microscopic micro-vessel images was realized. This method can effectively solve the problem of manual initialization of contours, avoid the sensitivity to initialization and improve the accuracy of level-set segmentation. The experiment results indicate that compared with traditional micro-vessel image segmentation algorithms, this algorithm is of high efficiency, good noise immunity and accurate image segmentation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhan Akram ◽  
Jeong Heon Kim ◽  
Chan-Gun Lee ◽  
Kwang Nam Choi

Segmentation of regions of interest is a well-known problem in image segmentation. This paper presents a region-based image segmentation technique using active contours with signed pressure force (SPF) function. The proposed algorithm contemporaneously traces high intensity or dense regions in an image by evolving the contour inwards. In medical image modalities these high intensity or dense regions refer to tumor, masses, or dense tissues. The proposed method partitions an image into an arbitrary number of subregions and tracks down salient regions step by step. It is implemented by enforcing a new region-based SPF function in a traditional edge-based level set model. It partitions an image into subregions and then discards outer subregion and partitions inner region into two more subregions; this continues iteratively until a stopping condition is fulfilled. A Gaussian kernel is used to regularize the level set function, which not only regularizes it but also removes the need of computationally expensive reinitialization. The proposed segmentation algorithm has been applied to different images in order to demonstrate the accuracy, effectiveness, and robustness of the algorithm.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Yang Li ◽  
Wei Liang ◽  
Yinlong Zhang ◽  
Jindong Tan

Vertebrae computed tomography (CT) image automatic segmentation is an essential step for Image-guided minimally invasive spine surgery. However, most of state-of-the-art methods still require human intervention due to the inherent limitations of vertebrae CT image, such as topological variation, irregular boundaries (double boundary, weak boundary), and image noise. Therefore, this paper intentionally designed an automatic global level set approach (AGLSA), which is capable of dealing with these issues for lumbar vertebrae CT image segmentation. Unlike the traditional level set methods, we firstly propose an automatically initialized level set function (AILSF) that comprises hybrid morphological filter (HMF) and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to automatically generate a smooth initial contour which is precisely adjacent to the object boundary. Secondly, a regularized level set formulation is introduced to overcome the weak boundary leaking problem, which utilizes the region correlation of histograms inside and outside the level set contour as a global term. Ultimately, a gradient vector flow (GVF) based edge-stopping function is employed to guarantee a fast convergence rate of the level set evolution and to avoid level set function oversegmentation at the same time. Our proposed approach has been tested on 115 vertebrae CT volumes of various patients. Quantitative comparisons validate that our proposed AGLSA is more accurate in segmenting lumbar vertebrae CT images with irregular boundaries and more robust to various levels of salt-and-pepper noise.


Author(s):  
Ignasius Boli Suban ◽  
Suyoto Suyoto ◽  
Pranowo Pranowo

The rapid development of computer technology has had a significant influence on advances in medical science. This development concerns segmenting medical images that can be used to help doctors diagnose patient diseases. The boundary between objects contained in an image is captured using the level set function. The equation of the level set function is solved numerically by combining the Lattice Boltzmann (LBM) method and fuzzy clustering. Parallel processing using a graphical processing unit (GPU) accelerates the execution of the segmentation process. The results showed that image segmentation with a relatively large size could be done quickly. The use of parallel programming with the GPU can accelerate up to 39.22 times compared to the speed of serial programming with the CPU. In addition, the comparisons with other research and benchmark data show consistent results.


The main aim of digital image segmentation for portioned the image in to its constituents parts for getting information regarding features of image also used to get pathological details from medical images. The literature available from last two decades the important scheme for image segmentation is with Level Set technique, multilevel thresholding of gray scale on histogram of image is also a traditional method of image segmentation. In this paper low contrast images from medical and satellite images considered for image segmentation to extract features. This paper puts forward a novel image segmentation method via Level Set Function along with BiHistogram Equalization based on Harmony Search Algorithm(LSFBHEHS). The Selective Binary and Gaussian Filtering Regularised Level Set (SBGFRLS) is efficient novel region based Active Contour Model, it uses a novel region-based signed pressure force (SPF) function, it can adeptly halt the contours at blurred edges and weak edges. Other important advantage is internal and external boundaries can be distinguished by fixing the initial contour may be anyplace in the considered image. This method is resourceful but requires more time and inefficient for segmentation of low contrast images. This problem is rectified by applying bi-histogram equalization(BHE) image enhancement method prior to Level Set, it can be treated as pre-processing. In BHE technique of image enhancement, the image histogram is partitioned into two divisions based optimized gray level threshold , and equalize each part of histogram separately and combined later. To find the optimized threshold level to slice the histogram into two parts, Otsu’s multilevel thresholding method used to find threshold level, to find optimized thresholding level Harmony Search Algorithm(HSA) is implemented to maximize inert class variance as objective function. For evaluating the proposed method and SBGFRLS, the qualitative measured used like Dice similarity index, Measure of Enhancement(EME) and time required, for experimentation numerous low contrast satellite and medical images are considered, results clarified that the proposed method is more efficient for low contrast and inhomogeneous images.


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